Leonardo Jardim embarrassed FIFA ahead of his Al Hilal side’s Club World Cup semi-final against Chelsea – claiming football’s governing body had given an “unfair” advantage to the Premier League side.
The former Monaco coach broke ranks to hit out at the competition – being staged in Abu Dhabi – insisting clubs outside of Europe were given little chance of triumphing.
Chelsea and Brazilian giants Palmeiras enter the tournament at the semi-final stage, but other teams are forced to play one or two extra qualifying games.
Saudi Arabian side Al Hilal had to come through a quarter-final against Al Jazira of Abu Dhabi – winning 6-1.
Al Jazira had already had to play AS Pirae from Tahiti.
Ahead of Wednesday’s game, Jardim said: “This is a warning to FIFA. We have the best clubs in the world here, but it is unfair some teams have to play four matches in eight days and other teams can rest and only play two. Their teams are rested. I do not think that is fair.
“Always the same team wins and there should be more care in the schedule so the teams from Asia and South America have a chance to win the Cup.
“I am sure the European teams and in this case Chelsea - it was Liverpool in the past and others - are favourites but we have additional favouritism when Al Hilal has two days to recover and we have the same 24 players and one team is coming out fresh.
“Our victory the other day mirrors the fact Al Jazira had had a game two days earlier and you could see that in the second half.”
